Distinguished much by reason, and still more By our capacity of grace divine, From creatures that exist but for our sake, Which having served us, perish, we are held Accountable, and God, some future day, Will reckon with us roundly for the abuse Of what He deems no mean or trivial trust. Superior as we are, they yet depend Not more on human help, than we on theirs. Their strength, or speed, or vigilance, were given In aid of our defects. In some are found Such teachable and apprehensive parts, That man’s attainments in his own concerns, Matched with the expertness of the brutes in theirs, Are ofttimes vanquished and thrown far behind. Some show that nice sagacity of smell, And read with such discernment, in the port And figure of the man, his secret aim, That oft we owe our safety to a skill We could not teach, and must despair to learn. But learn we might, if not too proud to stoop To quadruped instructors, many a good And useful quality, and virtue too, Rarely exemplified among ourselves; Attachment never to be weaned, or changed By any change of fortune, proof alike Against unkindness, absence, and neglect; Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat Can move or warp; and gratitude for small And trivial favours, lasting as the life, And glistening even in the dying eye. Man praises man. Desert in arts or arms Wins public honour; and ten thousand sit Patiently present at a sacred song, Commemoration-mad; content to hear (Oh wonderful effect of music’s power!) Messiah’s eulogy, for Handel’s sake. But less, methinks, than sacrilege might serve— (For was it less? What heathen would have dared To strip Jove’s statue of his oaken wreath And hang it up in honour of a man?) Much less might serve, when all that we design Is but to gratify an itching ear, And give the day to a musician’s praise. Remember Handel! who, that was not born Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets, Or can, the more than Homer of his age? Yes—we remember him; and, while we praise A talent so divine, remember too That His most holy Book from whom it came Was never meant, was never used before To buckram out the memory of a man. But hush!—the muse perhaps is too severe, And with a gravity beyond the size And measure of the offence, rebukes a deed Less impious than absurd, and owing more To want of judgment than to wrong design. So in the chapel of old Ely House, When wandering Charles, who meant to be the third, Had fled from William, and the news was fresh, The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce, And eke did rear right merrily, two staves, Sung to the praise and glory of King George. —Man praises man; and Garrick’s memory next, When time has somewhat mellowed it, and made The idol of our worship while he lived The god of our idolatry once more,